Starcraft II Reviews: Criticism over Incomplete Game?

As most of you are aware, the official reviews for the game are yet to go live on some of the biggest gaming websites on the net, but that hasn’t stopped users giving their own opinions on the game.

PR has taken a look at some of the user reviews over at Amazon, and we were surprised to see the sheer amount of negative feedback for Blizzard’s strategy based game.

The biggest problem that users can’t seem to get over, is the fact that they consider Starcraft II to be an ‘incomplete game’. A lot of user reviews have scored the game just one star out of five, stating that they shouldn’t have to pay $60 for 1/3 of the full game.

Have you played the game yet? Is the negative feedback justified for Starcraft II or not?

Just so you don’t have to search yourself, here is a few of the reviews that caught our eye –

1) I’ve been watching my friends play and occasionally get a turn and it feels like it could be a lot of fun. From what I’ve witnessed the installation and activation process is horrible and completely ruins the game. A couple people couldn’t even get it to work on their brand new systems. You’ve got to sign up for an account and have internet access even to play in single player mode and there’s no LAN play. It’s ridiculous that honest paying customers have to put up with all this nonsense.

2) So you buy a PC game for 60$… and you get a 1/3 of a game, with glitches and hitches and more ways to make money. I remember when I was excited about blizzard games… i even bought blizzcon tickets this year… I feel dirty now. Why?

3) $60.00 for this? Blizzard is treading on the loyalty of its longtime fans just for a grab for more money. Are the dumptrucks full of WoW money not getting to the office quick enough Blizzard? It seems like now more than ever ‘game’ companies are trying to squeeze every last cent out of its sheep-like fan base.

Obviously some pretty harsh comments on the game. Do you agree with these gamers or not? Blizzard are obviously planning to include more content for the game soon, so perhaps it’s best not to jump to conclusions just yet.

Alan Ng, this article is straight up BS. Your forgot to mention the most obvious element of incompleteness and that is DRM FORCING YOU TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET ONCE A MONTH. That’s called renting a game. Not owning it.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Halla/515200789 Steven Halla

the game is pretty good the only thing i hated was the fact you only got one account per game…so if you live in a household of 10 people and they all want to play starcraft 2,your forced to either A.buy 10 copies of the game B share your account with everyone…..that and sometimes you cant play offline unless you update which i had a problem with recently……and you have to have internet to even create an account so if your one of the few people who dont have internet then you wont be able to play this game.which is a bunch of bull crap when you think about it.

Mxbh

Okay seriously i dont think ive seen a bigger amount of QQ in my entire life!

1) oh no i have to take 10 minutes out of my life to register a copy of the game…

Would you rather that the game got pirated to shit and made blizzs 100 million investment worthless? 99/100 people who have a computer that can run starcraft are going to have atleast some form of internet.

2) oh no the single player is so short…

Compared to the original vanilla starcraft, the game time is roughly the same. Also, theres tonnes of achievements, easter eggs, challenging challenges to do, a map editor with endless possibilities and 100s of awesomeuser made custom games.

You people seem to be completely forgetting about the incredible multiplayer which for me personally has taken up probably over 100 hours of my time. Once you get the hang of the multiplayer, all the game types are a blast. Beginners usually find the team games funnest. Theres people to play and talk with every hour of the day ( chat rooms are gonna make this much easier soon).

3) oh no im only paying for a third of the game…

Seriously? Refer to 2)

3) oh no n

Boobs

After reading about the anti-piracy protection in place, I just pirated it to test it out. If I have to be on-line to play the game, it better be an MMO, otherwise that's just a joke. I actually wound up just getting a test key from friends so I didn't even need to pirate it, go figure. I no longer have the game, but couldn't justify buying the game at the store either. I sold off my Xbox accessories and could have gotten this easily with the store credit, but it just didn't seem worth it so I took cash for quite a bit less money on the sale. If the game was complete I definitely would have just purchased it, as I prefer to support the companies, and purchase several hundred dollars worth a year usually. I just can't justify paying for this though.

The game was indeed unfinished. They just threw in the most boring portion of the game first and left pretty much no units in multiplayer. Clearly Blizzard's new business model is to rip off the customer as much as possible. I'm surprised they didn't make everything outside of the Marines a DLC unit. Hopefully they don't read this and get any ideas actually.

It should have been like the first one, with campaigns for all three and then more units for all 3 in the expansion. Also 2 total purchases rather than an announced 3 is a better idea. Worse yet is the time gap for the second one. If they have the same time gap, you can expect this game to be fully completed about 3 years in actual time. That's way too much time.

This game is all flash now and just not as much substance. Total letdown.

wefwf

i downloaded it, cracked played offline SP, truth be told i was disappointed and it went to the bin;p not worth its price, at all, hell i wouldnt give more then half of price.

DoW2 actually even tho it has few bugs and few bad designs is great and innovative. I wish DoW2 had battle.net-like platform :S

Nao

Well, being a hardcore SC1 player, I would have been pissed if they changed the entire concept of the game, so yea, SC1 with better graphics is exactly what I wanted and what most of us who played SC1 wanted. Indeed, if anything changed too much, we would have been pissed.

BUT, what else did we want? We wanted to be able to play offline, more importantly LAN offline. That is after all what made SC1 the best strategy game that ever existed. Fast paced LAN action after coupling our PC's with series of tangled network cables. Now:

1. Only two of my friends bought the game, because it is ridiculously priced, and because having sufficient internet access to allow us to play = even more ridiculously expensive.

2. Playing with my two friends, even while sitting next to me, we have to put up with 300ms ping, i.e. LAG LAG more LAG and pop-up error msg. We want fast paced action, with no interruptions.

3. A strategy mmo? Enough said.

4. Instead where ALL gamers ALIVE on EARTH would have bought this game, and happily played it offline, prob only 10% of those gamers would buy it now.

Overall, this whole having to be online thing coupled with ridiculous pricing spoiled SC2 for me, completely spoiled. Within our gaming community, we can not enjoy the game, even though it's most awesome.

John H

My main complaint about SC2 is that I can't play it with my friends since most of them lives on the wrong continent. Turns out Americans can only play with Americans, Europeans only with Europeans, etc..

This would have been acceptable in the late 90's or early 00's.. But not in the 10's.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=7403043 Damon Peoples

All I'm saying, punks, is wait for Steven Spielberg to develop his long brewing science fiction game franchise. It'll blow the doors off. He also believes that cinematics are intrusive, and is working to magnify narratively within the in-game. Now, that's exciting to me.

Robin

All of you complaining its 1/3 of a campaign, is like complaining after watching LOTR: the fellowship of the ring… Theres more to come, and the campaign we do get is fulfilling.

FanieT

This game sux if compared to World in Conflict. Cannot even zoom properly or rotate to view from a different angle. What the hell do you need 3D if the view point is a straight up down config.

This game engine makes the game a 1 / 5

Robin

push page up and page down to rotate the camera

http://www.bestcasino-bonuses.com Daniel

Too much hype for this game.. I understand it has a remarkable fan base.. but come on.. it's just a game!!

Thomas

I liked the game, I did enjoy it and had no real problems running it on my 4 year old Dell! BUT!

1) The internet connection thing is scummy, lucky I just had broadband internet installed but prior to that my only option was dial up. I'm not alone either despite what some people think a very high percentage of users are still stuck with dial up connections. Something Blizzard seems to have ignored!

2) Missing the LAN feature is disappointing too, why do I need to use up my precious bandwidth to play with my brother in the next room!

3)Finally the 1/3 the story disappoints me, I obviously didn't get the news release that it was only the Terran campaign. I mean that's OK I guess as long as the "expansions" are reasonably priced, but i have a sneaky suspicion they won't be!

It not to late blizzard great game and the problems are nothing a good patch can't fix!

Simon

Anyone who has had the misfortune of being a WoW addict over the years will not be surprised in the slightest by the awful milking of past glories on the part of Blizzard. From being a company that provided games of a higher quality than all it`s competitors that really respected the people who bought their games it has now turned into a corporation, with profit as their only aim. If they can cut corners they will, if they can con you into wasting more money on games you`ve already bought for full price they will, if they can camouflage poor writing, shoddy and repetitive game play or corporate swindle behind fancy graphics and fluff they will.

Blizzard is overdue for a good consumer embargo, and I don`t even base this on the rather unimpressive single player campaign of SC 2 or the online requirement of the game, but on the disgusting developments I`ve seen with Blizzard during the years I played WoW.

Anonymous0000

You can play in offline mode. Campaign and Player vs. AI skirmishes are still available. You people are idiots.

MARK

I cannot return the game due to the fact i played 1 online game. They have this bullshit system set up so as soon as you make your account to play starcraft. The CD key is forever tied to that account. So that means you can't return the game. Extreme scumbags in my opinion

christy

just what I need
spend time getting a on line account when I will never play on line
if any where on the dvd cover it stated that this was the case I would never have
bought this game sorry
video games are disappearing from PCs just for this reason
this is seriously annoying
there is no right to privacy but blizzard is getting ridiculous

rahnjin

It seems Blizzard just decided to mail it in. I was so excited to play the other two races but what do you have?

1/3 of the story. Plus all the glitches and installation issues.

What a let down. Blizzard will probably sell the other 2/3 as expansions.

ben

I assume if Blizzard hadn't told you about the rest of the story you would be perfectly happy? the campaign is long enough, like 30 missions.

blizzardhater

GREEED… pure and simple.

Daniel

Can't play offline that is abysmal terrible
to everyone that say they can try disconnecting your internet or modem without already having started SC 2 or your pc !!! like when you want to play with your laptop somewhere with no wifi

Will

To everyone who has said that you need an internet connection to play single player, you are so very very wrong about that.

Once you've registered, anyway. But is that REALLY something to complain about?

You can still play with your friends via the very reliable battle net system, there is no real need for LAN support.

CfChua

Just one question, though it is a big one cause it affect Diablo III as well. Will we be able to create private games with only our friends as opponents?

proto57

You can play offline! Don't get me wrong, I agree with many of the complaints about the changes to SC, while I'm trying to keep an open mind and not dismiss the game. But the thing which worried me most was the fact that many have said you cannot play single player unless you are connected to the internet: This is incorrect! Try it yourself, as I did. Go to your connection and disconnect your computer from the internet, or shut off your modem, or whatever… then when you open SC2, you will get a notice that you are not connected to the internet, and you will be given the option to play offline. Then you can play a regular game against the computer AI, or your campaign (with all the cut scenes, and so on) no problem, just like the original SC. Rich.

Realitysan

Ubisoft had a problem recently where customers were forced to authenticate their games through a authentication server and they got DDoS'd to hell and back.

What is preventing folks from doing the same thing to Blizzard's battle.net service? Other than the fact their resources are very beefy, but I am a firm believer of nothing is DDoS immune.

Only time will tell.

Elephunk

Your username makes me think you're a juggalo. Sorry, but you just lost a lot of credibility in my book.

Elephunk

This is the age of indy game developers. It's time somebody steps up to the plate and claims the title of underdog by creating a game as astonishing as Starcraft was in the 90's. I remember when Blizzard seemed like just some small cross-systems company, and when Bungie made games that were given to you free with the purchase of a Mac (Weekend Warrior). It's time we see more small guys rise to the top again.

CfChua

haha, I would love that. I will be the first one in the queue to give them my money, as I did for World of Goo and what not.

Geekoid

I can't help but notice that the people complaining generally list facts and reason, while the people for the game make vague comments with no examples. Generally the side posting actual facts is correct.
That said:
The fact that only ONE person can play a specific install is irritating. There is no reason why 1 install can't have several players play with there battle net profile is just plain rude. I'm not talking about on the same license key at the same time, I'm talking different profiles but being used one at a time. So, for my family to enjoy this game, but not on at the same time, would be 240 dollars. Yes, if all wanted to play at the same time, I could understand that. This is just making everyone at a card game pay for a deck of cards even though only 1 deck will every be used. Bad Manners, rude, and insulting. Shame on you blizzard, shame. Oh, and I love the guy who tells people who our on the fence to only read the 4/5 reviews~ Confirmation bias much?

pammy

This gripe about not being able to clone additional battle.net accounts from one purchase, on the surface is a valid one. however you must take into account the type of atmosphere blizzard is attempting to keep and maintain online, on their free internet player service battle.net. Battle.net broke barriers years ago by being the first service of it's type to easily connect players over the internet, and has been a free feature of all blizzard staple games since the 1st starcraft. However the types of account abuses that occurred on battle.net were a unwanted side-effect of the open cloning policy of old. You could act like a total internet jerk with a certain handle/screenname (spammer, leaver, hacker), and than log on with a totally different one should you decide to change identities, and endlessly do so. With only allowing one allowed account per copy of starcraft 2 purchased, it's obvious (from my point of view) that blizzard is attempting to lessen if not eliminate the battle.net troll/jerk identity game.

Secondly, may i ask, say you had a console game (PS3 call of duty) and wanted to play online with your family, you would need to buy additional ps3's and TV's and additional copies of the game. And this doesn't seem illogical to resent or find it irritating that sc2 is one in the same?

CfChua

One thing to remember is that the spawn version is one of the thing that showed blizzard cared and what launched SC to its high status nowadays. They are plainly forgetting their root.

And moreover, the argument about griefing is not value, as if a complaint is logged, the administrator can easily track it back to the person in involved.

And I believe the poster is not asking for unlimited profile. But to have three different profile for one account is not too much to ask for,

Lastly, I think you might have mixed up his argument with those who are arguing for LAN support. He is asking for multiple profile which can be used only one at a time. The other group are asking for LAN support which allow them to play games with their friend without internet, through LAN … with or without spawn copies.

jerry

can anyone tell me matter of fact if internet connection is required to play this game? I see most the posts say yes but than one says no….not very good internet options wear I live and although I have loved blizzard games in the past I dont want to spend $60 if I can play the game. Thanks for any help.

pammy

You DO need an internet connection to register the game, after installing it.

You do not need an internet connection to play single player after the initial registration.

ben

Pammy is correct.

Lord Metzen

Seems like most of you can't remember Diablo II launch day….we couldn't even play because battlenet was down because of all the ppl trying to connect at the same time….

1/3 of a game?…they could have said ok this is it…..and announce an expansion later….bad points for telling the truth?…..so you really do prefer MW2 exp packs priced at 15 bucks a pop?…

Correct me if im wrong but 29.99 for 30 missions packs, are ok for the price, broodwars was priced excatly like that, but they just did 1 exp…..here we have 2.

P.S. Starcraft 1 was outdated graphically when it was released, it was never intended to have groundbreaking graphics, it had style, and SC2 has style.

CfChua

just one correctly … at least Diablo II you can play single player without having to connect to battle net.

As for expansion, not they can lie to us, else kotick might have. Because it will be clear from the ending and the fact that you only play terran (mainly) that it is 1/3 of the story.

as for 15 buck a pop … where did you get the figure. The box for SC2 is US$60 in US, up to US90 else where. Here it is US$80. Expansion pack if it cost 2/3 of the price will be US$40 in US. So tell me that it is reasonable.

Yes Starcraft 1 had style, although not all of it is in gameplay, for TA at that time is just as innovative. Just the way hype goes I think. But Starcraft 1 brought more innovation to the genre at that time than SC2 ever did.

Tim

My *only* gripe with the game is the price. I had a hard time justifying paying $60 for a computer game, but I did it because I have faith in Blizzard that they deliver quality games consistently. They have never let me down, and still have not with Starcraft II. I'd say I'm about 1/3 of the way through the game at this point, and I'm loving it. There are enough upgrades to the game to justify its release. The graphics look awesome, the new units are very cool – though I still have plenty more to see – I LOVE the abilities and upgrades you can purchase between missions. I have to say I prefer the fully rendered cinematics they've used in previous games over the in-game engine showing them, but it's not a big enough issue to complain about. I'm curious to see how the story pans out, but I'm loving it so far. All you whiners need to man up. The game warned me upon installation that my video card driver needed to be updated, which I did, and the game has run perfectly for me. Not one crash. Before complaining about how buggy the game is, make sure you updates all your drivers and DirectX.

Richard

I played a couple hours of single player last night without having an internet connection. I may be wrong, but I think the internet connection is only required for the inital install of the game. Try not to blow it out of proportion and use the offline mode if you're on the road (Steam games often do the same thing).

I hate Activision because of Kotick (didn't buy MW2 because of it) and am a bit concerned that they "own" Blizzard, but as far as I can tell, this is a highly polished, evolved game from the original Starcraft.

ben

This is what I have heard also. You need internet to register but you don't HAVE to have internet to play single player, you just can't tie the progress to a battle.net account if you play offline.

CfChua

Yes it appears so. But you have to authenticate after around 30 days before you can continue with the single player again I heard.

Billy

It would appear that half of us can actually run the game and the other half are experiencing lag or issues. My computer is a custom built Frankenstein that runs it great! My best friend got his copy the same time as me and installed it on his top of the line gaming machine and he has glitches and serious lag!

This is a new game and has many bugs still. Lets just sit back and enjoy what we got with the understanding that it will only get better from here. They will fix the glitches and add expansions to the story.

Ok, lets look at some of the main complaints I see, and then apply a bit of truth a logic. Lets look at the process of buying the game through the average buyer's eyes.

1. I have been shown in game graphics, both through screenshots and gameplay videos.
2. I have seen the cinematics, specifically the opening one.
3. Blizzard has told me this will only be the Terran Campaign.
4. With this knowledge, I go to my local gamestore and pay the $60/$110, and purchase this game.
5. I now complain that I got exactly what was advertised, even with the previous knowledge of the exact game I was getting.

RationalNinja

The people who are bitching about this game are a bunch of trolls. I’ve been playing since beta 1 and quite frankly I would pay $100 for this game, while I rarely even buy console/pc games for more then $40.

Let me explain quite simply what the issue is here… we have a bunch of children (not necessarily by age) who months ago heard the news that this game would not support LAN and would be a trilogy. You can look at all the bitching that has been happening since then, and the pacts that were made in which they would troll sites like Amazon.com to underrate the game. Fuck them, quite frankly.

It’s a bunch of bitches when they don’t realize that the single player alone is not only longer then StarCraft 1, but every other RTS game out there. I mean shit, did these same morons skip out on watching The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Underworld, etc as well?

Blizzard sought out to make this game epic, and for those who have actually played the single player, we know they are doing just that.

Hell… let’s not even start with the multiplayer. The game wasn’t even released and we have ESPN level commentaries that are the most watched videos on YouTube. 1 MILLION active beta testers. Why? Because there is nothing remotely close.

Look, I can understand the issue about LAN. However, we’re not in the 90s anymore. Had this game had full LAN support, these same morons who are QQ’ing would probably be playing via one those virtualized LAN networks with a pirated version.

If you’re really that concerned with being able to play offline; Learn2Internet and get a crack.

LetoMAX

Dear 'RationalNinja' … 'Rational'… being the word used here.. What the **** gives you the right to insult people that express their honest opinions !!! The game is NOT different by any margin.. FACT! .. Blizzard are paralyzing players who want to play OFFLINE.. FACT!

Now you **** off !

Costa200

Quite honestly you don't know squat about Starcraft… Ho can you say that the campaign is longer than the original? Have you played the original at all?

CfChua

Tone down your vulgarity young man. Look who is calling others a bunch of children.

Anyway, you skirt the important issues such as the pricing, the lack of innovative features and intrusive Battlenet feature such as REALID and what on and pick on those complaints you feel you can easily insult? Please look at the mirror before you call other people childish.

The game is perhaps an above average strategy game but by no mean a ground breaking one. So if you like it, great, enjoy it. But given its nature, there will be many people who will be put off by it and not just by its gameplay element, which is a sad development.

But one correction, it is NOT longer than Starcraft 1 … although it might have added more scripted events. AT some estimate, it takes about 20 hour to play through, not too short but not exactly an epic either. And other strategy game such as supreme commander, total war series, company of heroes is much bigger than SC2 in the single player component.

Kayden

I don't mind activating a game on install with my key or something that's fine but to assume every one will have an inet connection is absurd!! I shouldn't have to worry about playing a game I paid for if a convenience is down or unavailable in a location!! What about Military personnel?!? What about the people who all ready commented on other situations where they don't have inet and it is legit?!? I will NOT buy this game and any one who does is in my mind giving away our basic rights to property we PAY for LEGITIMATELY!!! This isn't a debate for me or any one else I know who works hard for a living just to make ends meat. I served my country and now I can't work because of that fact, but I can barely live on what I get so my resources are finite at best. I will not condone actions such as these from a company who believes they are better then those who they serve that buy there products. I say any every one should not buy these kinds of games until Developers and Publishers get the message that this is a load of crap and we consumers should be treated with RESPECT not RESENTMENT. You only hurt the consumer with this crap not pirates, learn it.

pammy

you don't need an active internet connection to play single player. only to register the game to prove you actually purchased it, and didn't steal it. Than you can play single player mode to your hearts content offline.

CfChua

not true. it for only 30 days it seems, after that you will be locked out until you authenticate again.

RationalNinja

The people who are bitching about this game are a bunch of trolls. I’ve been playing since beta 1 and quite frankly I would pay $100 for this game, while I rarely even buy console/pc games for more then $40.

Let me explain quite simply what the issue is here… we have a bunch of children (not necessarily by age) who months ago heard the news that this game would not support LAN and would be a trilogy. You can look at all the bitching that has been happening since then, and the pacts that were made in which they would troll sites like Amazon.com to underrate the game. Fuck them, quite frankly.

It’s a bunch of bitches when they don’t realize that the single player alone is not only longer then StarCraft 1, but every other RTS game out there. I mean shit, did these same morons skip out on watching The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Underworld, etc as well?

Blizzard sought out to make this game epic, and for those who have actually played the single player, we know they are doing just that.

Hell… let’s not even start with the multiplayer. The game wasn’t even released and we have ESPN level commentaries that are the most watched videos on YouTube. 1 MILLION active beta testers. Why? Because there is nothing remotely close.

Look, I can understand the issue about LAN. However, we’re not in the 90s anymore. Had this game had full LAN support, these same morons who are QQ’ing would probably be playing via one those virtualized LAN networks with a pirated version.

If you’re really that concerned with being able to play offline; Learn2Internet and get a crack.

thedukesd

The game is overpriced.
The campaign is kinda bad. I played so far 20 missions. Most of the missions have no connection between them.
What did I liked? The protos mini campaign (except the last mission where the last goal is just stupid fight until the last protos dies… anyway you lose that mission so why not to stop it when you made the 1500 kills and then in a cinematic show how the zergs aer overwhelming the protos and kill them all…), the 2 mission (doc and nova) where I could chose what side to chose, and the cinematic with Kerigan left behind… The rest is boring.
I don't like the sound and the "music".
The fact that you need to have an internet connection to play the game is completly wrong. Last time I checked Starcraft 2 was a rts and not a pure online game (if they wanted a pure online game they could had just made the multiplayer and nothing else, they said the campaign was no ready and that the multiplayer was ready and that was a big lie).
There are several countries that don't have a lot of people with access to internet… Even so you don;t have everywhere access to internet if you want to play from your laptop while you are traveling (even if there are hot spots would you trust them to use you bnet account? you can easily get hacked… and probably it will not work cause the game require port forwarding as far as i know)

The campaign is way to small. Finishing a game in less then 2 days is kinda strange don't you think? If I played so far 20 mission in ~ 1 day (and don't think I played without sleeping, I sleeped as usual, eat, played another game…) it's clear that I will finish the game in under 2 days…

Atm here is how I apreciate the game:
Graphic: 7/10
Sound: 2/10
Story: 2/10
Multyplayer: 5/10 (several reasons here, including the lack of an option to be able to create a game were it's imposible to do rush, for casual players the bnet games are rush rush rush so they can't learn a single thing from this)
Price: 1/10

Story can get a bit better then now if somehow the things start to have a real conection, the rest will not change when I will finish the campaign.

Bill

Just curious, but do you have an 'hours of play' count on that?

Artimus

I purchased the game, played the first 5 missions, and do not have a problem with the game at all. What I do have a problem with is the fact that it took me 40 attempts to finish these first five missions because of all the crashing. I have a PC that kills Crysis so it's not that. I am completely angered by this and will not be purchasing any further games from Blizzard. This is exactly the reason why more and more people are moving to consoles. I can not explain how angry I am.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/index.php?show_part=19 GroK

To anyone on the fence about getting this game …Please read some of the more sensible 4 and 5 (and 6) star reviews on Amazon. Don't miss out on one of the greatest PC games of all time. It is a polished, full game with near infinite playability from one of the premier game developers. It has tutorials, challenges, and many multiplayer (human and AI) options with balanced matching and game play. Think of speed chess, rock paper scissors and hide and seek in 3D with surround sound. This is the game that will bring professional e-sports to America. It's so amazing and fun it makes me cry … what a great time to be alive!

CfChua

with due respect, for me at least, the scissors paper stone approach is one of the basic problem as other games have moved away from it. It basically limits your unit design and force you down predictable avenue … at least the way SC1 & 2 is going about it.

Other games with more diverse and different unit abilities might be less "balance" but offer more strategy and unpredictability.

Of course, it is your opinion against mine and even my little pet his its own opinion when it comes to things that matters to it. So let's just agree to disagree. But the word e-sport brings shiver to my spine. Inflated price and gorging of the customer base, anyone?

Tim J

I’m no stock market analyst, but it’s my guess that the money you’ve made from this game so far will take a sharp decline within the next week after this bad release. This rings of the recent iPhone 4 situation. I really hope someone from Blizzard is actually reading these reviews because and respond quickly about it. I don’t think this will happen though. I really don’t think they care.

CFChua

Hi Time, I don't think so, the hype is too strong for it and there are people who actually like the trimmed down game play. But it will definitely hit the sales of Diablo III if this continues. Although by how much? Again it is down to the hype.

Tim J

I’m a very patient person and I’m always positive by nature. The reviews of SC2 are pouring in and most of them aren’t positive. I feel like I’ve been robbed though like most. I love the familiar feeling I get from the game, but I guess I just was expecting something groundbreaking, something spectacular, something new. Graphics are good, storyline is great, but the game is a huge let down over all. I guess I’ll have to become a Microsoft game fan and hope they’ll come up with a good new strategy game. Blizzard, you’ve lost a fan. Good luck gang.

Tim J

I’m with Andrew on the whole internet thing. One of the impressive things about most of Blizzard products is that I could always play by myself and be happy doing that. I could play anywhere, anytime as long as I had my trusty gaming laptop. What the hell were they thinking! You have to have an internet connection to play? That’s ludicrous! No wonder they kept that tidbit quiet and kept all things quiet because there’s now way in hell this game is going to win Game of the year. Blizzard betrayed their followers and loyal fans. So, I guess when my internet is down, I’ll just have to play pong to keep myself entertained now. Needless to say, I won’t be buying SC 3 or any of SC2 expansion packs unless the online crap goes the way of th

Charlie

If you've ever played a game on Battle.net, then you know that there is an offline mode. Troll. moron.

PUBLICENEMA

hahahahah YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ONLINE TO PLAY SINGLE PLAYER. EVERYONE WHO KEEPS PERPETUATING THIS HAS OBVIOUSLY NOT PLAYED OR PURCHASED THE GAME!!!!!

Tim J

I picked up my copy yesterday like all loyal Blizzard Starcraft fans out there. It was like Christmas for me back when I was a kid. I couldn’t wait to get home and rip that sucker open. Then things became abundantly clear for me. All that delays, all the silence, no reviews, nothing coming out of the Blizzard camp except trailers I’ve been watching for 2 yrs and the promise of something new, something fantastic, and something that will make the original Starcraft look like Pong. Well, I’m still waiting to be impressed.

KZA

seriously guys? This is gaming now days…. take it or leave it, I also live in Africa and we've just recently got uncapped broadband. I am playing and enjoying the game and have not had a single issue with it. Online activate and play is here to stay guys, best connect or find a new hobby.

and hey, if you're too much of a snob or too righteous to follow this new way of thinking, pirate the game its out and playable offline, I'm sure you'll 'show them up' that way.

For those of you enjoying your game, awesome!

Jonathan

To all of you out there having problems with instillation and random crashes I feel sorry for you. I bought mine from blizzard online. I downloaded it within 2 hours (Not bad for 6.99GB and everyone else downloading too). It installed easily in my custom directory. When I booted it up I entered my long time unused battle.net account and logged in. Personally I don't see a problem with needing to be connected to the internet to play single player; however, Those who are in area's with limited/no internet I feel for you. The graphics are somewhat better than StarCraft and the cinematic are nice. I like the fact the game makes you choose sides based on what you feel like doing (save them or burn them! :D) This game is basically StarCraft with a few upgrades and new units. I still love this game though 😀 I can play the game with ultra settings and still have 60fps. yay

Angryclown

All I hear is a lot of little kids crying over how this isn’t the most groundbreaking thing in the universe. You guys set your expectations way too high. Maybe you should have got out more, or watched videos, or actually read about the game before you came here crying about how you think it’s 1/3 of a game, or there are mechanics in place you don’t like.

Structurally the game is sound. No issues, no performance lag, the game installed quick and runs great on my 3 year old M1730.

I don’t mind the whole battle.net, you gotta be online thing. I have an aircard, I fly airlines with free wifi, and I have internet at home. I don’t know what you people did horribly wrong to not be able to set up your accounts and play… If it took you 45 min to just get connected, you need to buy a computers for dummies book.

As for the game itself, if you even remotely looked at anything about the game, you knew it wasn’t going to be an epic, genre changing game. It’s going to be exactly what it is… a sequel that is an improvement on the original in just about every way.

Don’t go ahead and protect your insecurities by calling me a Blizzard fanboy, I didn’t even like the original Starcraft all that much, but the beta of SCII made me think it was worth a shot and it’s an immensely fun game that I had absolutely no trouble playing. I came into this knowing that it’s a huge game about the Terrans because … thats what it was advertised as… if you’re gonna cry about that, maybe you should have researched what you were buying. It’s all your own fault.

Its definitely worth picking up and playing. But don’t run out and buy something inventing this picture in your head of what it’s not.

Trent

This article is ridiculous. You're basing an article from a handful of negative reviews from whiny people.

I logged on yesterday to Battle.net and there were 17,000 people online. I'm pretty confident that most of them were playing Starcraft 2 and most of those were enjoying themselves.

The single player campaign is not 1/3 of the game and I have trouble believing anybody who says this. They clearly haven't played the game. It is a full length campaign. There are lots of things to do between missions and meaningful choices.

Blizzard is not ripping people off. They figured out a way to extend the life of a single product by giving you more with each release. It's brilliant. People will be chomping at the bit when the Protoss campaign comes out to see the end of the story. Anybody remember Return of the Jedi?

gore

You're such a shitheel Blizzard fanboy that is so blinded by the product that you're too fickle to see it's flaws. You're exactly what they want as a customer. Blind.

Nick

Everything has flaws including the people that believed this game would ship without them. I enjoy the game and can't wait to get home after my workout to play. If you enjoyed SCI I say try SCII. Cheers.

Jjjjjj

you're an idiot. get off blizzards nuts and wake up you retard.

Jerry

Sorry – I won't be paying full price for this game if I have to be online to play SP. I'll wait until the price drops.

Charlie

Every game has an activation process. You sound lazy.

Joe L

I played the first 4 or 5 missions last night (about 2 hours all told, with thoroughly exploring the base area between missions and everything else) and I have to say that I am not dissappointed in the least. My only true gripe with the game is that the in-game graphics far exceed the cinematics' graphic quality or the WoW-esque character models in the base area between missions. That said these things did not detract from the game, and only seemed off in comparison to other, extremely high fidelity character models I've seen in recent months (Uncharted 2 on PS3 for example, puts Starcraft 2's cinematics and up close character models to shame). I am glad that focus was put on the in-game graphics engine, because having deficiencies there WOULD have detracted from the game.

The gameplay is flawless. I have a AMD Phenom quad-core processor, decent motherboard, and radeon 5800 series card (1 GB) 4 GB RAM, etc etc. Needless to say I have a decent rig, but not a monster like many others have posted here. I am playing the game on highest settings and have not yet experienced any crashes, slowdown, or any other kind of system instability. Perhaps those of you with issues should check your drivers. I feel that the ingame graphics are stunning, and don't see the resemblance to WoW graphics there. Though at this point whenever I see that complaint on message boards whether pertaining to SC2 or D3, I pretty much read <troll> and move on.

If you are a starcraft fan and liked the first game, yes this one brings more of the same… but really did any of us want anything else? If major changes had been made I know I would be more likely unhappy than the alternative and am glad that they stuck with a winning formula, added some gloss, added new units, and a few new necessary mechanical and gameplay tweaks, and a great campaign that reminds me of how unique and non-cookie cutter the SC1 and now SC2 campaigns are. Each mission is different, and though the first few have been simple, they have been extremely interesting and gratifying nonetheless, and I look forward to going further.

Jay

Ok, I bought the game and had high expectations. They are so far, met.

First, for those who complain about graphics. Go dust off an old nintendo. The games didn't have to look amazingly lifelike to be fun. Gameplay and fun factor are far and wide more important than being able to say "Ooh, shiny cinematics!"

Second, the one third of a game argument. Go back, play on the hardest level, attempt all the objectives rather than just run in, shoot, and leave. Any fun game can be ruined with cheap tactics, and repetitive play. I mean in Starcraft 1, you can pretty much beat every toss level by walling yourself in and then mass building carriers. Sure, it may make for a guaranteed win, but it is boring, Try something new. The fun is in playing and experiencing, not seeing how fast you can possibly finish each and every level.

For me this game delivers. I have had no hardware/software issues and I run *gasp* windows vista. The only issue I had since playing was the power went out mid mission, but thanks to the autosave feature blizzard included, I lost maybe 10 minutes of play.

For those complaining about needing to register online, all I have for you is the following statement; Really? Is it so horribly inconveniencing to take 10 minutes to prove that you paid for a game? You don't even need to log in to play campaign, only for battle.net. I do agree we need LAN support back, but that is minor for the time being.

The installation is horrible? Once again, I disagree. Again, running windows vista with a computer that is not overclocked, or tweaked in any way, I had no problems, are actually found the installation refreshing as it covered the storyline from a game released ~12 years ago.

So to recap, stop being whiny children. " This game didn't look like kerrigan was going to slice me in half during the cutscene", "I have to register online", these are really minor issues. I can't wait to hear the crying from people like you if Duke Nukem Forever gets released since Duke Nukem himself doesn't drop in and hand deliver the game to you.

CfChua

mmm These are all easy complaints to rebute, because they mainly stem from unrealistic expectation about an above average game. – except for the hardware issues. Do not be so condescending to dismiss the problem so many other people have encountered. In fact, these was suppose to be a big problem too during beta and has simply not been resolved.

The biggest complaint from me are first .. the price gorging. US$80 per copy for vanilla game (US$140 for collector)? Too much for too little.

Secondly, no demo, only the so called 7 days guest account thingy from people who have bought the game …

Thirdly, lack of true innovation – true, part of these is because what people day … SC2 is mainly a game that build itself up to be a e-sport friendly game – read twitch friendly, high click per second game. But why didn't include at least zooming, moving and attacking, more diverse unit options and abilities, deformable terrains, unit icon grouping, customisable queue build etc. No game can have all of them, but not to have put in effort to incorporate one or two of them, or come up with new features in way that enhance their own gameplay, speaks of attitude to play it safe and cater to the crowd. It might work for those who hanker for it, for a moment, but not for me.

Patrick

As far as I'm concerned this game is awesome. I love the level of detail and gameplay. Also, it runs very smooth on my Core I7 with 512MB graphics card. I've got almost all graphic options on Ultra and textures on High.

It's true the game only has one campaign, but that's a long known fact so why complain about it after you've bought the game?

The price might be a bit high, but at least you get a very nice game for it. Most E.A. releases I've bought (like BattleForge, Settlers 7, Spore, Red Alert 3) felt like a complete waste of money to me.

And yes, there's no support for LAN matches anymore… If this really really bugs you, don't buy the game, but so far I haven't had any issues with Battle.Net, which by the way is also used for World of Warcraft so they've had lots of experience with many players connecting at the same time etc. I remember 'playing' BattleForge the first 4 weeks after it was released… Think I got in the game only 3 or 4 times in that whole period because of connection issues…

Conclusion: Don't buy this game online, go out and get it in a real-life shop… It'll be the last daylight you'll see for weeks!

Jiman

Spore was a big disappointment for me, mostly because it was so hyped.. then they decided to dumb the game down and take away alot of the features.

This seems to be a trend now a days with a lot of game developers.. a new marketing ploy to attract a wider audience of players by making the game that much less interactive as well as "dumbed down" (my fav't word through out my posts").

CFChua

Mmm if you are honestly into strategy game and not just Blizzard type of game, then I would recommend CIv 5, Sins of Solar Empire, Total War Series, Supreme commander, Company of Heroes. These are all innovative games that brings that extra something to their gameplay instead of just relying on the same old formula.

Not sure I can recommend Supreme commander but it is down to personal preference I think. and the good things is that most of these games have free to play demo so you can try out for yourself first, unllike SC2.

Hano

Damn Activision Kotick got to Blizzard..fuck them

http://n/a Le John

I imagine so since the ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′ went Steam, this Battle.net internet requirement sounds like a form of Steam as well. And trouble with Steam is the need to stay online while playing, or to reconnect online at a later time before playing your single player game. In essence, you don’t own the game, the company does…kind of like renting an appartment. The landlord has every right to go inside your house if he so much as suspects your “plumming” has gone wrong. Maybe he was checking up on your “personal doings” and just used that as an excuse. That’s how I see Steam — an invasion of privacy.

CfChua

Hi John,

This is not Steam … steam is not so in your face about it. Just in case you didn't know and it is getting to you when you play your steam game, you can in fact play steam offline. You just need to select offline mode in steam and you can play the game as per normal. The only problem happens with games that requires you to connect to Window LIVe or something when you play, but that is not steam's fault, and even most of these games will allow you to play, just can't save achievement or something.

Also, if you like to, you can backup all your game file to another harddisk and you do not need to download them again to play. or can even use that copy to clone to another computer and play from there.

Starcraft 2 on the other hand, requires you to be online. And only allow you to be offline for 30 days before you need to authenticate again. THAT is unacceptable.

http://starfeeder.com Brendan

For those of you who’ve bought this game and disapointed with the gameplay or complaining it’s 1/3rd of the game, the campaign itself is insanely long and roughly 35 hours~?(ingame time, not taking 40 hrs straight to beat it) worth of game-play in some cases.

The problem with the expac is that the 1st 4 missions are really unimpressive, but i will spoil it for you – It gets better, then great, then if your a true fan of the game – amazing!

A lot of the later missions have hero ability objectives and some of them are mazes or puzzles. Here’s another spoiler – the PROTOSS have their own set of missions within the whole campaign. So technically you’re able to play 2 of the races in the game thus far, there’s a whole track dedicated to a protoss story line.

My only grip is that this awesomeness isn’t until roughly the middle of all the missions, so keep playing if you’re disappointed.

Ive been playing all day and I’m not half way through the missions.. It definitely has a lot of time consuming value.

Cody

Really? 40 hours? No sir its not. There is even an achievement for beating the game in 8 hours. Someone has already beaten it and it took them 16 hours and they sped through the game. How in the world could you come to the conclusion of 40 hours?

CfChua

he probably is taking his own sweet time with the missions, like what I like to do, but am not doing with starcraft 2 because they are charging me US$80 for a vanilla game.

Also he is probably going for all the secondary objectives and achievements. That will all add up.

http://n/a Le John

Anyone saying that SC2 is a “good” game or the “best” game they ever play has me almost fully convinced that they either work for Blizzard or are trying to justify all the crap they had to go through just to install the game.

Really, now people…let’s be real. This game is said to have cost $100 million dollars to make and was many years in the making…yet it’s still in need of patching? And someone mention ‘gameclient’ meaning they had to go online to downlowd a require file weighing in excess of 6 gigabytes. YES, I said required! And YES, I said 6 gigs!

I don’t care how fast your internet connection is, that’s complete irresponsible, greedy behavior from Blizzard. I’m terribly disappointed in them to put anyone through that. For $60, it’s just not worth it. Hell, I wouldn’t even pay $5 for this game just to put up with that, wondering what in hell is inside those 6 gigs…a DRM virus of some sort? I’m joking, of course, but you gotta admit — the extent to protect against piracy should concern gamers into at least wondering if they’re sending something into your computer without your knowing.

ari

you are obviously working for blizzard

CFChua

What do you mean? This is probably one of the more balanced review I have ever read., compared to those who simply praise the game up to the seventh heaven without acknowledging its fault and failings.

If anyone is in thrall of Blizzard, it will be those reviewers.

Guest

Ive played the first three missions and here are my thoughts on the game. I bought the original starcraft when it came out and thought it was easily a 8-9 out of 10 game for that period of time just like the warcrafts. I haven't played starcraft for at least 8 years.

Gameplay in missions…typical of what I remember in the original starcraft. Graphics/art style are not very engaging and seem somewhat outdated even compared to console games. Not much has changed here although the very start of each mission has very low frame rates on my system.

The menu system is horrible/torturous! It should never take more than a few seconds to get from option to option in a menu…not a lot of action happening. This is the first game ive played that actually punishes you for exiting the game by making you wait 5 minutes or forcing an end task routine. all i can say is WTF?

Buy the game if you haven't played SC for a very long time as it is still a fun game even though dated. If you are strapped for cash, you will be very very disappointed. You aren't getting much bang for your buck.

the chosen one

bro these problems all usually occur due to an outdated computer i play star-craft fine on my computers me and a family member play head to head ..the online game play is great but what i don't understand is that i had to pay 60 dollars for a profile… basically you can only make a profile if you buy the game sure you can play as guest and what not but that's not the point .. i paid 60 dollars for an original disk and installed it on both computers …

Josh

Listen guys we just went out and bought the collectors edition of this game i believe we paid our dollar for some service.

Our computer is in top notch condition, we can play any other game on the market (games that require more then this one) Our game crashes within 10-20 minutes during game regardless of how low we set the graphics on the card or game options, we have tried reformatting the entire PC we have tried cleaning all our hardware we have tried every fix floating out there imaginable. We need some damn service this is not on our end. I would include the error scripts however i think you guys have already seen them many many times. I dont know if you guys need to make a patch or what the deal is but this needs fixed asap.

I would consider this no different then if a good friend of mine were to steal 110 dollars straight from my wallet, could we forgive? perhaps will we forget? never.

We will be awaiting your response PLEASE HELP

Dax

make sure all you drivers are up to date… check requirements again… a computer in top notch condition isnt always a top notch computer… And no one has seen these error messages you are talking about, and it is reasonable for me to assume they dont exist until they are posted or I see them… Your best bet is straight up contact blizzard tech support have you computer specs complete and ready. Your missing out on an amazing game… Perhaps it's the retailer who sold you the copy that is stealing $110 straight from your wallet.

http://n/a Le John

Are you having problems with any other games? If not, are they old games (1 to 7 years old?) If so, it could be the drivers.

Personally, I haven’t purchased the game, nor will I ever.

Matt R

I'm waiting for my copy of Starcraft 2 and I'm already dissapointed to hear about the having to be online to play single player. I currently am living in The Republic of Congo, and the internet service here is EXTREMLY slow. meaning I can't play most new games that are coming out, due to this stupid idea someone came up with, that we should be connected to the internet to play by ourselves. I also travel and work in remote locations in Africa with only my laptop and games to pass the time…..I assure you there is no sign of internet out there.

Tim J

I'm with you Matt. I really am. I really, really, really am disappointed that I can't play this game like I place the original game. Meaning, play it whenever and where ever I want too. The internet connecting thing is a huge let down.

Andrew

Oh, and it's not as simple as returning the game if you don't like it. For people like me who purchased the game at Gamestop or Bestbuy, you can't return games or software. You can exchange them for the same thing, but you can't get a refund. You can sell them back for a fraction of the price at Gamestop, but the only way you can get your money back at Bestbuy is by complaining enough or having enough of a sob story about how your computer can't run it or something to get your money back.

The point is, you shouldn't have to return it. The game should have been better than it was. Period.

Tim J

I do have a question for you Andrew. I'm with you on the internet connection dependency issue. Truth is, it's the only real grip I have so far with the game. However, it's a big one. Do you think it's something that will change?

Henry

Couldn't agree more! Since when we the gamers should have returning the game as sole resort? How about deliverance and how about a refund for something preposterously expensive with 1/3 of the punch? Blizzard: if this SEGA-like trend (think of Empire TW) is your new fad I'll have no choice but to close my pocket and my hard-earned greens to you. (Just shivering thinking of the price tags of the other two sequels…)

Andrew

However, the internet thing was such a pain in the ass. I installed the game on my laptop to play and took it to work. I figured that I could play a bit during my 45 minute lunch. Because I couldn't get an internet connection, however, it would not allow me to do ANYTHING. That is rediculous. The nice thing about Starcraft (and other good Blizzard games) was that you could play it anywhere. If I was on a long airplane trip, on a road trip, even if we went to visit relatives. I could open my laptop and play any of those games anywhere. Now, I can't play it in the car, airplane, or hotel (unless they have free wifi). They essentially made this game only for desktop computers, not for portability.

Jorge

You can actually play the main campaign or custom games against the AI once you have activated the cd key online, so I don't really see this as a problem.

GarteJax

AFAIK internet connection is required only for activation, then Single Player mode is available offline.

John

You only need an internet connection the first time, during activation.

Andrew

One serious complaint however is the game crashes. I'm running this on a quad core with 16 gigs of RAM, a sweet ass high def video card, and 1.5 TB HD. Twice now the game has crashed. Once, the entire screen turned black, then extremely slowly, changed to white. The second time, I had a completely black screen with what looked like a white vertical static line going down the right border of my screen.

GortJester

Something on your computer doesn't seem to be set up right… I may be wrong but that sounds like a video card problem…

Ted

your just bad at building computers then, not Starcraft 2 fault.

http://evansims.com Okaria

I'd check your power supply. I had an almost identical issue that turned out to be a failing PSU. Swapped it out and problem was solved.

Andrew

I've played the game pretty much all day and I have to say I'm a bit let down. I was expecting better from the ship scenes (something along the lines of a BioWare game), but instead get crappy WoW graphics. The cinematics are okay, I suppose, but compared to what the competition is doing, it's pretty crappy. I remember when Warcraft 2, Starcraft, and Diablo 2 were first coming out, you saw the cinematics and went, "WOW!".

It just seems to reinforce the fact that they've completely lost all will to be a decent company. Ever since that crappy WoW game came out, it's all Blizzard seems to put their time into. Look at the stuff for Diablo 3. Again, it looks like they've just re-done some characters from WoW.

Now I understand that Warcraft 2, Starcraft, and Diablo 2 used the same graphic as well, but that's because they were from the same gaming period. Excuse me, but WoW is old as hell and you can tell instantly. I was hoping for some up to date graphics, not something that looks like it's from 6 years ago.

Jiman

What will destroy Blizzard is if they use the same marketing tactics and design inspirations they have for WoW and apply it to other games they have.

Almost everyone has played WoW, so if Blizzard thinks applying the same concepts to their other games is a winning combo.. they will be very surprised by the result.

I truly believe that Blizzard thinks that dumbing down games and trying to appeal to the general audience is their "Golden Rule" now. That is why they did not add anything more to Starcraft, they were likely too afraid to change the "winning combo" as well as avoid any possible reprimand from making a more immersible game.

I even remember reading Beta reviews of players saying "This is Starcraft 1 but it just has better graphics.. wth?".

I am truly afraid of how Diablo 3 is going to turn out.. I am looking forward towards that more so then any game i have every looked forward too before. EVER. If it turns out to be a game where the graphics are just redone, with the same spell mechanics… *shrugs* My god have mercy on our souls.

yetti

GOOD LORD thats the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Firstly are you even playing the game at a graphic level that lets the game look good? I mean are you actually playing it at a high quality or even better yet 'ULTRA' setting? cause If you have and your still not impressed at what this game has to offer your not comparing it to other games in it's leauge. It's not trying to be the next big graphics wonder. It's a strategy game, and just seeing the amount of work and quality that has gone into this game is impressive. every unit model and animation has been well thought out and executed.. and please.. enlighten me on what the competition is doin? cause I have yet to see another strategy game with as much polish and fine tuning as star craft 2…

Jiman

If consumers are not happy with their purchase they should attempt to return the game from the vendor they purchased it from. Not everyone is going to like Starcraft 2 or anything for that matter especially when an extreme amount of hype attached with the product. I think alot of people who is rating the game negatively and played it as well expected to by "awed" by it, and because they were not "awed" by it feel let done.

These individual's likely just finished playing alot of Starcraft 1, so they expected alot of changed features with the game.. which did not occur.

One aspect I hate about part "2" of games is simply making it graphically better, with no additional improvements to the game play. 100million dollars to make this game can easily be spent on graphics alone and nothing else, and it sounds like it was the case.
Blizzard needs to learn quickly not everything is about pretty pictures, its about game play, immersion, game diversity and a upcoming key factor for alot of games is "randomly generated connect" such as Diablo 2, Dwarf Fortress, Mine Craft, and Spore (very dumbed down game from what it should of been, but the randomly generated content is very well done and wisely integrated in the game.)

They can't seem to win; you're bitching about how the graphics are too good, in the sense that Blizzard spent too much time on them, and the guy below you is bitching about how bad the graphics are.

There's PLENTY of variety in the game. I've been blown away by the multiplayer aspect, and I've been having a blast playing it. The game is vastly different from the first, with a core aspect of the gameplay being pretty much the same. As for the graphics; they aren't that great, not when you compare them to most graphically enhanced games out there.

And that's a good thing. Across the board, Blizzard has understood that graphics aren't everything. All their games, graphically at least, have always been below par for graphics. That's because they understand two things:

A) With PC gaming, the more people who can actually run your game, can PLAY your game; and

B) Gameplay > Graphics. Period.

So no, I don't think that they spent a ridiculous time on the graphics as opposed to other aspects of the game. I think it's polished and just wonderful. I'm glad they put graphics to the backburner; I do most of my gaming on consoles, and that's because I've always found that with PC gaming, you get quite a lot of bullshit to deal with. Console gaming you don't. Blizzard has, for the most part, gotten rid of it.

And if you don't like no LAN support, don't play the fucking game. Jesus, I wish people would just understand that. (Not saying you feel this way, btw)

Jiman

Uh, prove me wrong. What is vastly different? The campaign?

If i picked up starcraft and starcraft 2. what would be different?

Velo3city

Number one difference would be that you get a campaign a third the size of the one provided in the original Starcraft. Basically, from what I'd seen first hand (and from what I've been told by friends) the sequel is a skeleton of it's predecessor designed entirely to appease the multiplayer crowd.

Thomas

Told by friends? Have you actually played Sc1? Sc2 isn't 1/3 of that game it's maybe 7/8 of that game, and most of the people complaining are probably 10-15 year olds that never even played the original. Most people are just waiting to see how much the 2nd and 3rd installments will be.